Police seek woman who they say may have played role in quadruple homicide

Calgary police are seeking the public's help in finding a woman who they believe may have played a significant role in a quadruple homicide earlier this month.

Yu Chieh Liao, who goes by Diana Liao, is considered a person of interest in the deaths of two sisters and two men, acting Insp. Paul Wozney said Thursday.

"We know she has information in relation to this event," said Wozney. "We would like to speak to her to find out exactly what she knows about this."

Liao is described as a 24-year-old Asian woman with dark hair and brown eyes who is five-foot-five and 160 pounds.

She has ties to Calgary, Vancouver, Toronto, Regina and Moose Jaw, Sask.

Wozney said she lives a nomadic lifestyle and tends to stay in hotels and use rental cars.

Glynnis Fox, her older sister Tiffany Ear and Cody Pfeiffer were found in a burned out car at a northwest Calgary construction site on July 10.

Police believe they may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Hanock Afowerk, the burned car's owner and the man police believe was the intended target, was found dead in a rural area west of Calgary two days later.

Wozney said Afowerk and Liao knew each other.

The same day Afowerk was found, Liao was spotted in the Moose Jaw area. It's believed she may be travelling with a short black man who was seen on closed-circuit television footage at a store in the Saskatchewan city.

People in Calgary's Sage Hill subdivision reported seeing a man fitting that description at the scene of the car fire, Wozney said.

Police have described all four killings as brutal and ruthless and said each of the victims suffered multiple traumatic injuries.

Wozney would not say Thursday whether investigators think the deaths were linked to organized crime.

"They want to keep their minds open to different investigative theories, different hypotheses of what may or may not have happened," he said.

"And putting labels on things, I don't think that that's a responsible way to go about investigating events like this."

Police in other cities are helping in the investigation, Wozney said.

He added that investigators in Calgary are working around the clock.

"I couldn't be more proud of this group. This is a very, very complex investigation — multiple pieces to it, multiple victims, multiple suspects or persons of interest — and we are working as hard and as long as possible to really seek the truth to what happened."